I got my first emb machine in 2001. It was a less cost one by brother it only did a 4x4 and it wasn't long before I up graded to a 8500D then from there I went to a 4000DD Get the most you can afford and you will be glad you went for the more instead of the less in this case.
Brother machine are user friendly and there are a lot of design on line. www.emblibrary.com is one of my favorite places. Good luck one which ever you get.

I did a lot of research for a coworker's husband who wanted to buy an embroidery machine for his wife for Christmas and I ended up recommending the PE770, which he purchased through Amazon. He had given me a dollar limit and I knew my coworker didn't want an embroidery/sewing machine combo, just an embroidery only machine.

You can find reviews of machines on this board and I would also recommend this site for reviews.

http://sewing.patternreview.com/news...i-bin/index.pl

I started out with a Brother PE150, then upgraded to a Brother 8500, then upgraded again to a Brother Innovis but I also own, and really like, the Bernina 600 and 650 embroidery machines. I don't think you can go wrong with the PE770.

I bought myself a Brother PE 770 for Christmas and love it!! I bought the Brother SE 400 in November and decided the 4 x 4 frame was just too small for all the designs I wanted to download onto a thumb drive. I returned the SE 400 and got the PE 770 and am so glad that I did!!